LEFTHANDEDNESS. 483 



painter, and mathematician, and accomplished in all the manly sports 

 of his age. Hans Holbein, Mozzo of Antwerp, Amico Aspertino, 

 and Ludovico Cangiagio, were all lefthanded : though the two latter 

 are described as working equally well with both hands. In all the 

 fine arts the mastery of both hands is advantageous ; and accordingly 

 the lefthanded artist, with his congenital skill and his cultivated 

 dexterity, has the advantage of his righthanded rival, instead of — 

 as is frequently assumed, — starting at a disadvantage. 



According to a brief report in the Glasgow Herald of a discussion 

 in the Anthropological subsection of the British Association on the 

 paper of Mr. James Shaw, already referred to. Dr. Robertson appealed 

 to the demonstration by Dr. Struthers, that there is greater solidity 

 on the right side of the body than on the left, as a fact which probably 

 accounted for the tendency to use the right hand. But assuming 

 this to be demonstrable, the deduction by no means follows as a neces- 

 sary result. Dr. Struthers has justly said, in the treatise referred 

 to, that " the phenomenon to be explained is not why each individual 

 uses one hand in preference to the other, the reason of which is 

 evident, but why all nations and tribes of mankind yet known to us 

 should prefer the same hand. It will be admitted," he adds, "that 

 any theory which professes to explain this remarkable phenomenon — 

 which has ceased to attract the notice of physiologists only because it 

 has baffled satisfactory explanation, — deserves examination, especially 

 when it supposes the cause to be a physical one acting within each 

 individual." Hence the careful investigations of Dr. Struthers, with 

 a view to determine. First, the exact usual position of the several 

 abdominal and thoracic viscera in relation to the middle line of the 

 body ; and Second, the relative weight of the parts of those viscera 

 which lie on either side of the middle line, as well as to determine the 

 absolute weight of each viscus. The results, as already stated, rest 

 on the most satisfactory data ; but they fail to account for lefthanded- 

 ness. In so far indeed as the investigations were made on adults, who 

 had through a prolonged lifetime systematically given the preference to 

 one side over the other, some of the observed facts may have resulted 

 from this. It is, at least, much to be desired that opportunity should be 

 found for repeating the same class of observations on well defined left- 

 handed subjects. In all such reasoning there is need of a clear discrimi- 

 nation between cause and efiect, as- well as between what is natural 

 and seemingly instinctive, and what is the result of education or 



